Crowd of community members gather at the place where the Imam was killed in New York City.(Reuters)
The killer who brutally shot dead a Bangladeshi-origin imam and his assistant near a mosque in New York may have been settling a score in a feud between Muslims and Hispanics, according to a media report today.
The suspect may have left behind another victim who unwittingly held the clue that solved the crime, the New York Daily News reported quoting police sources as saying.
The suspected killer was taken into custody last night but had not been charged or identified, it said. Police officials would not confirm whether a suspect was nabbed.
Video of the horrific incident on Saturday afternoon showed murders of mosque leader Maulama Akonjee, 55, and Thara Uddin, 65, at Liberty Avenue and 79th St in Ozone Park showed the brazen
crime to be a planned execution.
The killer had crept up behind the imam and his assistant and shot both men in the head from point blank range. But the killer may have got sloppy in his haste after pulling the trigger and hit a bicyclist with his car, sources said.
The cyclist took down the car's license plate number and gave it to police, who began tracking down their man. Members of an NYPD Regional Fugitive Task Force were conducting what turned out to be a "brief surveillance" of the suspect in Queens when he rammed an unmarked cop car, sources said. That's when officers nabbed him.
Investigators were questioning him today and were waiting for a warrant to check his home.
Sources pointed to an ongoing feud between Muslims and Hispanics in the neighborhood, saying the shooting may have been payback after a group of Muslims allegedly attacked some Hispanics a few weeks earlier.
Police have established that at 1:50 pm on Saturday, the assassin quickly approached Akonjee and Uddin and shot them both in the head at close range. The double killing came just moments after prayers concluded at the Al-Furqan Jame Mosque.
Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations planned to announce a USD 10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooter.
Some people in the Bangladeshi Muslim community served by the mosque worry the killing of the Imam and his assistant could be a hate crime.